Tuesday, July 12, 2011

The Need for Snow in the Summer

We made it to Bariloche! Santiago to Pucon to the border of Chile and Argentina then to San Martin de Los Andes with a final bus ride across the desert to Bariloche! We had an interesting approach to the Argentina border when both of us realized we forgot to get cash before we jumped on our bus. See, we initially thought US citizens needed to purchase a pricy visa to enter Argentina, we also heard the visa purchase was no longer required, but we found more sources showing you needed to buy the visa.

So here we are approaching the border short of cash convinced we need to buy visas, we are contemplating if there will be an ATM at the mountain pass border, if the border guards take credit card, or worse case, jumble together a broken Spanish sentence trying to borrow a couple hundred dollars for the visa. It ends up we got to the border and the guard stamped our passport for no fee, showing us Argentina no longer requires Americans to purchase a visa. So while the rest of the bus was processed we played on the border guard jeeps, in the mud, and with the border customs dog.

Nicolette's Jeep

My border dog

These people are from Venezuela

Nicolette playing in the mud

Only one problem on our arrival to Bariloche, no snow. Which is a big problem because we brought our snowboards and a duffle full of mountain gear across South America to snowboard! So we are now in a pursuit of powder, where it snows we will try to be, but for now we watch the weather waiting for new snow. At this point it looks as if we might skip town and head back to San Martin de Los Andes where the weather is a bit better.

In the interim this week, we have passed our time eating at Argentinean steak houses, drinking bottles of wine from Mendoza, trekking and trail running the mountains here in Patagonia, and later this week after some snow hits we might actually get some big mountain time in!

3 comments:

So is Bariloche (sp?) wet and San Martin more promising for snow? Or is the town of San Martin more interesting? There just has to be snow because I'm having snowboarding dreams....vicarious stuff I think. Love you!!Dad